Omar Arafat MD, Presenter: Nothing to Disclose

Reza Shahbaz MD, Abstract Co-Author: Nothing to Disclose

Mohammad Helmy MD, Abstract Co-Author: Nothing to Disclose

Lisa Kathleen Quane MD, Abstract Co-Author: Nothing to Disclose

Farhood Saremi MD, Abstract Co-Author: Nothing to Disclose

To perform qualitative and quantitative comparisons between commonly used diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) sequences at 3T.

Abdominal MRI (3T) of 25 patients (age 61± 14, 15 male, 10 female) referred for various reasons were prospectively compared for three DWI sequences including breath-hold (BH, scan time=18 second), free-breathing without gating (FB, scan time=2.4 minutes) and free-breathing with navigator-triggered prospective acquisition correction (PACE, scan time=3.3 minutes) at b50 and b1000. All performed with parallel imaging x2 acceleration factor. Artifacts and subjective image quality scores, signal to noise ratio (SNR), and apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) of abdominal organs as well as SNR, contrast to noise ratio (CNR), ADC, and lesion conspicuity were compared using paired student T test. p <0.05 was considered significant.

Signal of liver and pancreas at b50, signal of spleen at b1000, and ADC of liver, left kidney and pancreas were significantly higher in BH than FB and PACE. Specific artifact (motion, susceptibility, and RF inhomogeneity) and total artifact scores as well as subjective quality scores were significantly better for BH than FB and PACE. PACE had significantly better quality score (p=0.0001) but mildly better mean artifact score (p=0.1) compared with FB. Lesion conspicuity scores and CNR of solid lesions were not different among three sequences. Cystic lesions had significantly higher SNR with FB and PACE than BH.

BH DWI at 3T provides high quality images with better or similar SNR and less artifacts compared with FB and PACE. Solid lesion conspicuity and CNR were similar among three techniques. PACE did not show much favorable results at 3T.

Breath hold with parallel imaging sequence is fast with good image quality and can be routinely used for abdominal diffusion weighted imaging at 3T

Arafat, O, Shahbaz, R, Helmy, M, Quane, L, Saremi, F, Diffusion-weighted Imaging of the Abdomen at 3.0 T: Finding Optimum Technique by Comparing Three Different Imaging Sequences.  Radiological Society of North America 2010 Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting, November 28 - December 3, 2010 ,Chicago IL. http://archive.rsna.org/2010/9003427.html